What is the basis of microinteractionism?
our interactions (at the micro level) shape our world and construct sense of self and social reality
What is pragmatism?
William James in 1907: “All true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere.”
In other words? The only real things are ideas that work. We don’t need to worry about the ideal, because we need to operate in the real world. It’s only true if it can be proved so – since Plato’s ideal can’t be proven, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.
Hence, only those ideas that are in the real world need affect us.
What is semiotics?
Charles Sander Peirce
the science and study of signs and sign processes.
P. 250, Collins: “In Peirce’s view, one never perceives or thinks about the world directly, but only through the mediation of the sign.”
What are the components of semiotics?
Sign→object→interpretant
Sign: “something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.”
Object: that real thing which is signified
Interpretant: NOT the person. Rather, the thought called to the person’s mind by the object. (thoughts may be different than the real thing)
What is the looking-glass-self? Which theorist?
Charles Horton Cooley
1. We present ourselves to others through our behaviors and other characteristics
2. Others judge us and respond to us
3. We react to their feedback and change ourselves and our behaviors accordingly
What do the methods and findings of microinteractionists rely on?
phenomenological empiricism-Study of subjective experiences and consciousness from the first person point of view.
a person is the sum of his or her experiences and interactions with both real and imagined others (semiotics)
using what is said and what is interpreted through body language and reading between the lines to figure out what is going on that can’t be seen itself (using the closest things we can use to understand the unknown)
How else do children socialize through interactions?
Imaginary playmates
Fictional characters
Real people who are fictionalized
What makes people real?
other people aren’t actually real to us until we project an imagined inner life to them.
Your experience of other people is based entirely on phenomenological empiricism – you only experience them as real in their effects when you imagine them as having thoughts like your own.
Thus, fictional ppl can be as real to you as “real” ones.
What is the relationship between real and imaginary persons?
“It is worth noting here that there is no separation between real and imaginary persons; indeed, to be imagined is to become real, is a social sense…all real persons are imaginary, in this sense.”
P. 285 “Society…is a relation among personal ideas.”
The self is so socially constructed, those that we are the closest with and share similar views and experiences, then there is very little difference/you are not socially distinct from the other
How do we know we exist?
Physically and mentally
ability to move, ability to think, ability to have memory
What is the problem with the ideal?
we can only describe the ideal through the real iterations
Why should we care about the real?
It’s about what reality is and not what it COULD be
“All true processes must lead to the face of directly verifying sensible experiences somewhere.”
William James’ pragmatism
We don’t need to worry about the ideal because we need to operate in the real world. It is only true if it can be proved so since Plato’s ideal can’t be proven, it doesn’t matter if it is true or not.
What book did Charles Cooley write
Society is in the Mind
What concepts are George Herbert Mead known for?
“I vs Me”
“I” – the spontaneous, unpredictable impulsive part of the self. The “I want it now” part of you that doesn’t care about consequences or others’ feelings. (Babies display the “I” constantly.)
“Me” – the part of self that develops over time that knows the rules of society and controls the “I”
How is the “me” developed?
Imitation stage – under 3, child imitates behaviors and responses of parents (doesn’t understand the looking glass self)
Play stage – 3 to 6, child plays a role ( important for understanding that there are other people who think and act differently than them, thoughts are different from their own. Starting to understand the looking glass self)
Game stage – 7 and above (Definitely understands the looking glass self and has internalized the gen. other.)
Can put themselves into others’ mindsets
Example? A soccer game
What happens at a little kids’ soccer game?
Before they hit the game stage, the whole team runs after the ball because they don’t understand that someone else can be trusted to kick the ball to them
Also they get that their words can hurt others. Before this stage, “why are you so ugly?”
GENERALIZED OTHER – this stage!
What is the generalized other?
“The organized community or social group which gives to the individual his unity of self may be called the generalized other. The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the whole community.
When we know how to behave according to society’s norms as adults, we don’t do it because mom says so. We do it because it’s the “right” thing to do.
Hence, we’ve internalized society
How is the self experienced?
“The individual experiences himself as such, not directly, but only indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the social group as a whole to which he belongs.” (labeling theory, understand ourselves through other people’s eyes)
“The self…is essentially a social structure and it arises in social experience.”
Related to Durkheim who said individuals don’t know who they are unless they’re in a society
How does one know the generalized other has been internalized?
They’re capable of feeling shame for breaking a norm
How does Mead solve the micro-macro issue?
“only in so far as he takes the attitudes of the organized social group to which he belongs toward the organized, cooperative social activity…does he develop a complete self…and, on the other hand, the complex cooperative processes and activities and institutional functionings of organized society are also possible only in so far as every individual…can take the general attitudes of all other such individuals…and to the organized social whole of experiential relations and interaction [are] thereby constituted.”
Only a whole person if you bring the attitudes of society into you
What is the study on religious tattoos and how does it relate to the “I” and the “me”?
3,610 university-aged respondents and 11 interviews
What does your religious tattoo depict? Where is it located? What does the symbol mean to you?
1st theme: a lot of respondents said they had these tattoos to remind themselves of the ‘me’
2nd theme: remembrance of those who are no longer with them
3rd theme: respect for others
Reverence, remembrance, respect
Reverence - tattoo of Jewish word on the inside of their lip to remind them to think about what they say. Tattoo of crown of thorns to remind them to act like a Christian
Remembrance - tattoo of rosary to remember grandmother who said to do the rosary
Respect- Tattoos respondents considered religious but did not adhere to the religion themselves
Is Hubert Blumer positivist or antipositivist?
antipositivist
What is symbolic interactionism and its three premises?
The idea that we interact with one another through the use of BOTH verbal and non-verbal signals
We know meanings of things through the interactions with others
Semiotics:
This comes into SI overtly
Sign–> object–> interpretant–> (back to sign)
1. “Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings that the things have for them.” What are things? (act differently toward sacred objects because of their meaning)
we behave according to what sort of meaning we ascribe to the thing
2. “The second premise is that the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s fellows.” (meaning comes from the socialization we have that tells us something is sacred)
Labeling theory
hence, premise 1
“we form ourselves through role-play”
Divison between empirical and interactionist meaning comes into play. Blumer would say that you develop an empirical meaning on your own, but the interactionist meaning has to come from societal interactions
ex.- in American culture we eat beef, in Hindu culture they will not because the cow symbolizes meaning, but why do we eat it? Because we never interacted with the same meaning Hindu’s give to the cow. All we know is that it is food because that’s all we have interacted with.
Meaning comes from the interactions we have with other people
You don’t know meanings of things until you have interactions with others that solidify the meaning for us
3. Modification through micro-level interpretation
semiotics, a person is the sum of his or her experiences and interactions with both real and imagined others.
“…these meanings are handed in, and modified through, an interpretive process used by the person in dealing with the things he encounters.”
Meaning comes from interaction yet we could definitely argue that interaction is shaped by meaning.
Thus, if meaning comes from interactions, each person may have a slightly different meaning for “luxury” or “edible food” or whatever
As you interact with different things within and beyond your own family, literature, culture, or society, you shift your meaning of “X” because of new types and amounts of interactions.
Hence, meaning shifts in society over time as individuals have new types of interactions.
What is labeling theory?
“He can do this, as Mead has shown so emphatically, only by virtue of possessing a self…he can recognize himself…as being a man, young in age, a student…and guide himself in his actions towards others on the basis of the kind of object he is to himself.”
“We form ourselves through the process of role-taking.”
Where does meaning come from and how does it relate to Durkheim?
“does not regard meaning and emanating from the intrinsic makeup of the thing that has meaning, nor does it see meaning as arising through a coalescence of psychological elements in the person. Instead, it sees meaning as arising in the process of interaction between people. The meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the ways in which other persons act towards the person with regard to the thing…thus, SI sees meanings as social products.” (Meaning is socially constructed and comes from the interactions with other people)
Interactions precede meaning the way individuals are created by society (2nd question answered)
